the richtersveld cultural and botanical landscape - SAHRA

Richtersveld Cultural and Botanical Landscape World Heritage Site Nomination 83
newly inscripted Madriu-Perafita-Claror Valley, one finds that the people of both
areas have survived many social and economic changes which have challenged
their ways of life. In fact, most of the mentioned sites represent the last pockets of
traditional cultures in Hungary, Sweden, France, Spain and, indeed, South Africa,
where, just as these European cultures were able to survive massive social
pressures, the Namas - by virtue of the fact of living in so desolate a region - were
able to emerge from colonialism and institutionalized racism under the Apartheid
government with their culture in tact, even if continually threatened.
From a point of view of natural attributes, five sites can be compared to the
Richtersveld. Clearly, the Cape Floral Kingdom has important similarities with the
Succulent Karoo biome of the Richtersveld. Both biomes are distinctly Southern
African, with vegetation existing in no other place on earth. Both, as recognized
Biodiversity Hotspots, are extraordinary in regards to their plant life. However, the
Richtersveld is a desert, and in biological terms, the richest desert on earth.
Although the fynbos vegetation can boast a higher number of species than the
Succulent Karoo, it is arguably more remarkable that the Succulent Karoo holds as
many species as it does being an arid environment. Additionally, the Succulent
Karoo is arguably more unusual in that there is no other truly similar vegetation type
and environment, whereas the fynbos, despite its high levels of endemism, has
close similarities to the kwongan vegetation of Southwestern Australia.
If one compares the Richtersveld to other winter-rainfall deserts, such as Morocco’s
southern coastline, Chile’s southern Atacama and Baja California of Mexico, just
the Namaqualand portion alone (with the Richtersveld as a core) of the Succulent
Karoo has between four and six times as many species of plants. The other deserts
are also lacking the great numbers of leafy succulents and bulbs which enable the
Succulent Karoo desert to provide its impressive displays of blooming flowers.
These other similar-sized winter-rainfall deserts, despite some interesting species,
consist of mainly stem succulent plants such as cacti and euphorbia and stapeliads,
and leafy shrubs, but lack the unique diversity of miniature, ‘contracted’ plants, such
as tylecodons, crassulas and lithops which exist in the Succulent Karoo’s shallow
quartz-stone fields and gravel plains and which give the area a habitat type and
appearance unique to the biome.